Bonjour Tristesse

In my opinion this is one of the great novels about adolescence. What makes it so special is that it is deliciously French and amoral. The story of a French teenage girl, Cecile, and her father. They are a team. You might almost call them a couple. Cecile accompanies her father everywhere including to casinos and bars. She accepts his mistresses. Matters take a more macabre turn when her father invites one of his ladies to holiday with them in the south of France and Cecile learns that he intends to marry this particular woman. Françoise Sagan was eighteen when… show more.

Bonjour Tristesse is an important precursor to Gidget and creates a market for girl-centered books. Françoise Sagan wrote the novel when she was only eighteen years old and the book became a bestseller in both France and America. A first-person narration by a world-weary yet youthful character named Cécile, the story is set in a decadent milieu and engages existential questions of free will and freedom. Cécile and her widowed father are both pleasure seekers who engage in sexual conquests at their summer house. But when Cécile’s father begins a serious relationship with a serious and intelligent woman, Anne, Cécile… show more.